Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You Volume 5 Review
“Our Yama’s gettin’ duped… into spendin’ time with that creepy old fogy!” Kawakami, incensed.
As Mr. Sasaki joins Tayama for a smoke and a chat behind the supermarket, he learns that she’s very excited because her co-worker ‘Kami’ (Kawakami) has returned to the store and has been made department (seafood) chief in just three years! Sasaki can’t help but notice how animated she is and makes the obvious assumption that this ‘Kami’ must be a young man. Soon Miss Yamada (Tayama) is wondering why Sasaki is buying so much seafood – even his work colleague is amazed by the fishy contents of his homemade bento box. And then she realizes that he’s trying to get a look at this mysterious ‘Kami’ at the seafood counter. Could he maybe be jealous? She hasn’t mentioned whether this person is male or female and perhaps Mr. Sasaki has imagined that ‘Kami’ is a man that she has feelings for. And if he’s jealous, does that mean he has feelings for her…? Kami assumes that this middle-aged salaryman who’s hanging around her friend and co-worker must be a creep! She’s ready to do all she can to protect Miss Yamada from such an obnoxious customer.
And what of Obata, the other young department chief? Supermarket manager Goto has been watching over him, giving him reassurance and wise advice which he badly needs as he admits he has no people skills. She quietly insists, though, that he makes an effort to relate to his co-workers which doesn’t go so well when he tries to strike up a conversation with Miss Yamada but makes remarks which have the opposite effect, such as commenting that she eats a lot when they’re taking their lunchbreak. Has he made an enemy for life?
It’s no surprise that an anime TV series has been announced for Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You as this slice-of-life manga by Jinushi has been going from strength to strength, picking up a keen readership both here and in Japan. The smoking might be what brings Sasaki and Yamada/Tayama together but the main appeal of the story is the relationship that’s slowly but steadily evolving between the tired salaryman and the young supermarket cashier. It’s impossible not to root for the two (three?) of them to get together, even though Yamada’s first words (almost) in this volume are her determination to take the secret of her ‘other’ identity with her to the grave! However, in this volume we also see Yamada really happy that her friend Kawakami is returning to the store (and proud that she’s been promoted even though they’re contemporaries) – although another side to Miss Yamada’s character comes out when painfully shy Obata is doing his best to relate better to his co-workers, with some truly surprising results. We also get to learn something surprising about Sasaki when the weather takes a turn for the worse – but it’s the last chapter in this volume that is the most revealing!
Jinushi’s art style is perfectly suited to portraying the people working at the supermarket and their regular customers, delivering a wonderful and nuanced range of expressions, capturing the absurd humour of the main situation but also the underlying and genuine feelings that are repressed or hidden by the daily grind of commuting and work.
The translation for Square Enix Manga is again by Amanda Haley with lettering by Kyla Aiko and both work well together to deliver the sly humour as well as the more unexpected touching moments. There’s a page at the end by Jinushi as well as another Back-Page Cosplay, this time Officer-Yama and Suspect-Saki, a short gag manga page, and the preview page for Volume 6 (due out in January 2026). And, given the events of the final chapter in this volume, I (and other readers) will be on tenterhooks, waiting to find out what happens next.
A free preview can be found at the publisher’s website here.
Our review copy from Square Enix Manga was supplied by Turnaround Comics (Turnaround Publisher Services).
